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The park where Alan Turing solved the Enigma code during WWII is to host a Cyber Security College that will help nurture the talent of young people that aim to have a future in cyber security

The college will be the UK’s first National College of Cyber Security when it opens in 2018.

The plans were announced by a group called ‘Qufaro’ that consist of Cyber Security experts from various clubs and societies, who want to try and plug the skills gap in their industry stemming from their concerns regarding a lack of direction when attempting to train up cyber security experts.

The chair of Qufaro, Alistair MacWilson, said “Our cyber education and innovation landscape is complex, disconnected and incomplete, putting us at risk of losing a whole generation of critical talent.”

Sustainable flow of security professionals

Former Secretary and chair of the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies at UCL, Lord Reid, said “One of the great challenges is in developing a sustainable flow of skilled professionals for security, growth and cyber innovation. Existing initiatives cannot close the skills gap alone, so it is vital that we keep looking for new ways to build our talent pool.”

Qufaro executive director and CEO of Cyber Security Challenge UK, Stephen Daman, stressed the urgency of “With so much at stake, from personal data to the country’s critical national infrastructure, now is the time to act.”

With cyber-attacks becoming more frequent and destructive to people and businesses, Industry and government are working towards improving the UK’s ability to combat such attacks.

National Cyber Security Strategy

In November, the government published the National Cyber Security Strategy 2016 to 2021 report.

Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: “Trust in the internet and the infrastructure on which it relies is fundamental to our economic future. Without that trust, faith in the whole digital edifice will fall away. We need a secure cyber space, and we need to work together – business and government – to deliver it.”

Although teaching the next generation to become cyber experts will be expensive, it will save businesses millions for the cost of recovering from an attack.

A study carried out by Kaspersky found that large businesses could be forking out up to $1.5m for hiring contractors to help recover from a cyber security incident. Whereas large businesses that already have skilled in-house IT security experts to handle a crisis, pay at most $500,000.

This is due to a lot of money going to the wages external expert help – which can cost up $126,000 for enterprises, according to Kaspersky Lab.